When you start working on a recipe for something that seems completely obvious (like s'mores cookies) that there isn't already a super-common recipe for (like s'mores cookies), you need to wonder why. The first try on this recipe told me exactly why: The marshmallow in the cookies makes them fall apart if you don't let them cool for a long time (like 10 full minutes) on the cookie sheet before you try to move them. So that's my big caveat on this recipe. It's super-easy, super-delicious, and good for kids to help with. But if you don't let the cookies cool all the way, you'll end up with a crumbled mess.
I also tested these using a silpat on my cookie sheet. If you don't have one (and I recommend buying one, as they're not that expensive and make baking anything so much easier), grease the foxtrot out of your cookie sheet or put down parchment paper and grease *that*. I still make no promises without a silpat.
Now for the goods:
4 or 5 graham cracker rectangles
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 12-ounce bag semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups miniature marshmallows
Crush the graham crackers, in a blender or with your hands (or get your kids to do it) in a ziploc bag. Measure out 1/2 cup and set the rest aside.
In a big bowl, mix together the oil, eggs, sugars, and vanilla extract. Stir until completely blended. Put on top the flour, 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt. Mix those together as well as you can, then stir in to the wet stuff underneath. When it's completely blended, stir in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 15 minutes to overnight.
When you're ready to bake off the cookies, heat the over to 375 degrees F. Put the remaining graham cracker crumbs on a plate next to the cookie sheet. Scoop a spoonful of cookie dough and drop it onto the crumbs. Roll in the crumbs to coat the dough, then put on the cookie sheet. These cookies will spread, so don't put them too close to each other.
Bake for 6 1/2 or 7 minutes, then let cool on the sheet for ten minutes.
I have no idea how long these will keep, as my kids eat them faster than I can bake them.
(c) MagdaMedia 2010
Three looks this summer that almost every New Yorker rocks:
Have a great time while you're here. We are happy to serve you.
* I loathe gladiator sandals, and wish they'd just die a quiet death, but they're still in style here, so if you have them already, bring them to NYC with you.
It's been a long time since I really, really thought about breastfeeding.
I breastfed both of my kids, for longer than the US norm is, and I'm glad that I could. It was one (well, two) of the most simultaneously fulfilling and irritating experiences I can imagine.
But I don't think about it much anymore, because my kids are long past that stage. I'm too worried about getting into Kindergarten and balancing work trips with my custody schedule for the kids and mindfucking the emotional fallout for my kids of my getting divorced and researching karate classes and helping them navigate elementary school friendships.6. Talk about feeding babies with your kids, so they grow up knowing that babies need to be fed and that you fed your children and they'll feed their own kids. The circle of life.
If those of us who have more emotional bandwidth to think about the long-term effects on us of how society treated us while we fed our kids can be very specific in fighting back, this insane fuck-you to moms who feed their babies will finally end.
Then all we'll have is the fight for legislation protecting nursing, allowing for decent maternity leave, and protecting pumping time in the workplace.
I am on the third day of a whole three days with my boys. The whole holiday weekend, with no plans. No work to do (aside from housework), nowhere to be (except for church on Sunday morning).
It's been really nice. I basically let them set the agenda, so we've watched our favorite movie (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) another couple of times, and had yet another time-sucking mishap on the subway on the way down to church, and have made some curtains and brownies, and talked about kombucha and checked on the (frankly terrifying) progress of the kombucha I'm making.
But. I feel kind of trapped here, with no outside space that isn't the public park. And once again I wish I had a car.
I could have rented one, I suppose, to get out of the city overnight or even for the day. But we're going to visit my brother and sister at the end of the week, and I'm renting a car for that, so twice in once week is financially excessive. (Especially since I'm still paying off the lifesaving catheter procedure for Alex the cat.)
I hear people say all the time "I'm so glad I don't have a car," but I'll never be there. I think being raised in the Midwest, where we just hopped in the car and went wherever we wanted, has spoiled me for living anyplace I'm beholden to public transportation.
I know I'm supposed to like the work trips I take that don't require renting a car, but secretly I adore having a car, even for a day or two or three and being able to control when and how I go, and where I park, and the detours I can take and what I bring with me.
And now I'm signing off, so we can pay the Cars driving game on the Wii.
This is, far and away, my favorite season of The Bachelorette ever. And I figured out why.
#1: Highest number of freaky guys.
#2: The Bachelorette herself is a tougher cookie than most of them have been.
#1: Kasey and his tattoo have to be the number one strangest things ever to happen on the whole Bachelor/ette franchise. And then Justin (how could he not know he'd be outed like Wes was?). And Frank, who is just too earnest. It's a delightful mix of weirdnesses.
Also, who else thought Justin's girlfriend Jessica looked like the sober, sweeter version of Amy Winehouse?
#2: I love how Ali just gets rid of them when they reveal their bad sides. No crying about how they could hurt her like that. No taking it upon herself. Just the realization that Some People Are Weird and moving on. She's got more guts than I thought she would. I thought she'd be a Trista-style hurt lamb type, but she's turning out to be kind of a bad-ass.
Thoughts?
I'm not feeling so good today, and it's not just the sinus cold. I spent a lot of time on Twitter over the weekend following eyewitness feeds of what was going on in Toronto at the G20/G8 protests. First I was horrified at the disgusting things some of the extreme protesters were doing. But then, as Saturday night went on and Sunday wore away, it was the way the police were treating peaceful protesters and random bystanders that was most disturbing.
We know, every time there's a G20/G8 meeting that there are going to be rioting/vandalizing protesters. I feel so much sadness for the cities that are forced to host these meetings, because the lunatics show up just to destroy things and get an adrenaline rush out of yelling at people.
But then, even once they were shut down, the police just lost perspective, or maybe the people telling the police what to do lost perspective, and started detaining and arresting people just for being in their own neighborhoods.
We've seen it before, I know. But what really scares me most of all about the human rights abuses in Toronto this past weekend is that it's Canada.
At one point, the awesome Ann Douglas (author of the "The Mother of All" series) who tweets at @anndouglas tweeted "Remember how smug we all felt when Bush was in power in the US - how we said that could never happen in Canada? Yeah." and I realized that was exactly why it was freaking me out so much.
To me, it felt like our whole country was falling apart when George W Bush was President. (I know it feels that way for other Americans now that Barack Obama is President.) And especially having lived in NYC during 9/11, it just feels like we're always a short jump away from chaos. And like we really never know what's going to happen, because we're not an essentially civilized people. We're too polarized and angry and extreme.
But Canada seemed different. The Canadians I know are witty and intelligent and driven and self-deprecating and productive. And the whole country just seems more measured and civilized than the US is. Less prone to go off half-cocked about something that should really be people's private business, or start fights with other countries, or just stick their noses where they don't belong in general.
Canada was also this safe place we could go if the shit really hit the fan here in the US, because it was safe and reasonable there.
So on Saturday and yesterday when downtown Toronto was anything BUT safe and reasonable, for random Canadian citizens and visitors who were doing things like walking their dogs or meeting friends to go out and have a drink, everything fell apart. For the people who were detained and arrested and stripped of their rights, for sure, but also for everyone else, in Canada and in the US and in other countries.
Because if even Canada can descend into Lord of the Flies in a hot second, what hope is there for any of us?
because I just cannot shake the monkey on my back that is the entire Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. They mess with people's lives (people who volunteer to be messed with, yes, but still) and yet I cannot turn away from the trainwreck.
OK. I just made a momentous decision: I am only going to let myself watch this show if I'm knitting at the time, so I can at least come out of it with something other than compromised moral principles.
Now. If you watched the first ep of Ali's season of The Bachelorette this Monday, you may have noticed the same thing I did: Many many of the men seemed to have Mom Issues. Dead moms, sick moms, moms who taught them manners, moms who were abandoned or mistreated by their dads.
I wonder why that is, or if it was just the particular selection of men who were featured on Monday. Will it come into play later? That Kasey guy is clearly a little off (and I thought that even before seeing the promo for next week)--he reminds me of the freaky intensity Jake had on Gillian's season.
I like the professional wrestler, personally. But my money's on Chris from Cape Cod.
I don't know why, but I feel like I'd probably like Pamela Anderson in real life.
That's my only thought so far on this season's Dancing With the Stars.
I've got nothing. Just trying to figure things out. Feeling slightly better about things, although I attribute much of that to my decision NOT to watch Earth 2100 last night. From what I hear, it made you want to stick your head in the oven by the first commercial break.
I'm trying to keep things light and peppy for the time being: Bachelorette, Real Housewives of NJ, Deadliest Catch, and lots of Food TV. The always-delicious Tyler Florence. I love those Neelys--they seem to actually like each other. And I'm starting to get into Paula Deen, too, since she was also a single mom of two boys who came back from personal failure to build a happy life and found love at a later age. Ya gotta have goals...